


Chicken Noodle Soup For The Avatar Hunter's Soul

by whoknowsyourfuture



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, I have like 3 fics I've been working on, Idk what i'm doing, Inspired by MuffinLance's Tumblr, Not a zombie fic although I realize my summary may convey that tone, Sickfic, and approximately 63 bunnies but this is what got written today, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-02-18 17:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoknowsyourfuture/pseuds/whoknowsyourfuture
Summary: When Zuko rescues Aang from Pouhai Stronghold, he doesn't wake up so quickly. This leads to unexpected trouble in his crew being able to follow the Avatar.In short: Vaccinate Your Kids, Or They Will Infect You
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 695





	1. If You Plan To Travel, Please Vaccinate Yourself For All Pertinent Diseases

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



> Inspired by this anonymous ask sent to MuffinLance's Tumblr:
> 
> We've seen Zuko sick before, now I really want to see what happens when the crew fall ill. Uncle dumping all his tea leaves over the side and then jumping in to start boiling the ocean. Jee creaking some frankly unrepeatable things during a coughing fit. Engineer Hanako losing her voice and being very upset about that. Zuko desperately trying to nurse them all back to health, While running a ship And chasing the avatar And outrunning Zhao. Fun times. 
> 
> The first chapter borrows a lot from MuffinLance's fics, particularly Little Zuko vs The World. If you haven't read her fics yet, where have you been in the ATLA fandom for the last... six months? IDK it's been a roller coaster of FREAKING AMAZING content. 
> 
> If you spot any minor errors, hit me up, this was written over about two hours with no beta and spell check ain't perfect.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Zuko returned to consciousness to the sound of shouting. This was not uncommon; his room was not very far from the engineering, not when it came to the volume Engineer Hanako could produce. What was uncommon was that he was laying on cold rock instead of his cot. And, the voices shouting were much, much younger than anyone in his crew.

“… trust him just because he rescued you!” came a voice which sounded distinctly like the waterbender girl.

“Katara’s right, how do we know he hadn’t planned on getting you out and then capturing you himself?” That was definitely the other Water Tribe peasant.

“Why would he do that? They had me, and they’re all Fire Nation. If he hadn’t changed his mind, why would he risk me getting away?” And the Avatar was there too. Zuko wondered what it said about him, that even through an obvious concussion, he was so certain on the voices of the people he was chasing.

… Uncle would probably say some stupid proverb about obsession, like ‘The mountain is eroded by the wind and the rain even as the painter captures it’s beauty’. Not that he was sure how that applied to obsession, but that one came up often when his mission was discussed, and he was aware of how his crew thought he was obsessed with capturing the Avatar. Even though regaining his honor depended on it, and he couldn’t go home until he did, and his father… He definitely had a concussion. Now was not the time to be thinking of Uncle’s proverbs.

He opened his right eye just the smallest crack. The Avatar was still arguing about his change of heart, while the Water Tribe peasants were insisting otherwise. Zuko had to admit, they were much less naive than the Avatar. Considering that he had been planning to recapture the Avatar, they were spot on in their analysis of the situation.

… He was seeing spots… Where was he again? Oh, the Avatar…

Zuko wrestled his mind into submission and made the executive decision to escape and leave the Avatar believing in his good will. It would surely help him be more amenable to perhaps surrendering the next time he found him. It was not because he couldn’t see anything and wasn’t completely sure if he still had his feet. Oh, his eyes were closed. He opened them. There was his feet. Good feet. They could walk him back to the Wani. Completely ignoring the other three teens in the cave, as well as the massive Sky Bison, he trudged towards the direction of the port.

Several minutes later, Aang said, “Wait, where’s Zuko?”

“Somewhere where we can’t see him, so that’s our cue to exit before he can take us by surprise! Come on, up, on the ten-ton magical monster, let’s go,” Sokka said, throwing gear up into Appa’s saddle.

* * *

The next thing Zuko knew, he was on the deck of the Wani, with Uncle leaning over him concernedly.

“What have you gotten up to Prince Zuko?” Uncle asked, shaking his head. He started to lift Zuko up, and he passed out again.

* * *

“Just sit up a bit, Prince Zuko,” Uncle’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Five more minutes, Uncle,” Zuko mumbled, trying to turn over.

“You can sleep all you like in a moment, the doctor just needs to see what’s wrong.” Hands pressed against his throat, his forehead.

“He’s certainly ill, my best bet for this area would be Swamp Frog Fever…”

* * *

“… no Nephew, you don’t have to eat it.”

“m’not a cranefish.”

“I know Nephew, you just have to suck on the frog for a moment. It’ll make you feel much better.”

“Not a cranefish!”

“Nephew! Oh, for…”

“Sir, Admiral Zhao is here. He is insisting on seeing the Prince.”

“Tell him my nephew is indisposed.”

“We did, sir. He won’t listen.”

A sigh. “Fine, I’ll go speak to him. Try to get Prince Zuko to suck on this frog, will you? We need to do it quickly, before it thaws. Otherwise, you’ll have to go get more, won’t you, Pikeman Kazuto?”

“… Yes, sir.”

* * *

“I said he was ill, Admiral. He is also not happy to adhere to the recommended treatment, as you can see.”

“… I was not aware that the Prince could bend lightning.”

“Oh, he’s been working on it. Such a useful application of firebending, don’t you agree?”

“Certainly. If you’ll excuse me, I need to track down this person who would risk so much to save the Avatar. They may have a lead on where he is going.”

“Of course, Admiral Zhao. If we cross paths once again, please, feel free to attend music night. The crew is very adept in many areas. I’m sure it would be a joy for you to experience some of their talents.”

“Thank you for the invitation. I’ll keep it in mind.”

* * *

“Lieutenant Jee, I would appreciate it if you would prepare to leave as soon as we persuade Prince Zuko to take his medicine. I do not think that is the last we will see of Admiral Zhao for a time unless we make ourselves scarce.”

Armour creaked in agreement. “Of course, sir. We can be ready in an hour.”

* * *

When Zuko finally woke up aware of his surroundings, the Wani was suspiciously quiet. The sun was high in the sky, but the lack of sound had far more in common with the middle of the night. Then the silence broke, with all the gravitas of a komodo rhino in a tea shop, with a thunderous, echoing sneeze.


	2. Should You Fall Ill, Please Refrain From Going Out In Public

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zuko's primary form of information gathering (shouting) does not function as usual.

“WHAT HAPPENED!?!?!” Zuko shouted at Pikeman Kazuto. He had swept through the ship for several minutes, finding every member of the crew lying prone, some of them in positions which suggested that they had succumbed to their illnesses at their posts. None of them responded to his questions with more than a congested mumble, and he had been growing quite alarmed at the thought of being the only able-bodied person on a ship which was manned by a minimum of ten people.

“You did, your Highness,” said Pikeman Kazuto.

“What are you talking about? I don’t remember anything for at least the last day! How could I have done anything to them!” Zuko had at least lowered his voice to a hearty bark, instead of the bellow his initial yell had been.

Frankly, Kazuto was thoroughly over this entire mess. He didn’t know how the prince had managed to infect the entire crew so rapidly. They hadn’t even spent a full rotation of the sun out of port before the rest of the crew started dropping like crowflies. Unfortunately, the weather had been perfect in that less-than-a-day, and General Iroh had been rather intent on getting as far away from Zhao as quickly as possible. Which was reasonable. No one with eyes had been able to avoid the creepiness that the man exuded towards the prince, and even seed lighting didn’t seem to fully kill it off. Regardless, they had made terribly good time into The Middle Of Nowhere, North, and by the time he had figured out what was wrong, no one was able to help him get the ship turned around for a cure.

“Prince Zuko. Whatever you were off doing, you returned with a particularly nasty and quick-acting strain of Swamp Frog Fever. You were confined to your rooms and I was sent off to retrieve the frozen frogs necessary for recovery. I managed to return within three hours of your discovery, and the cure was applied. Shortly thereafter, we left port. And not one full day after we left port, everyone else on this ship, including General Iroh and Lieutenant Jee, have also succumbed to Swamp. Frog. Fever. I have been trying, for the last DAY, to run this ship and care for everyone who is ill, WHICH IS EVERYONE, AND I DON’T CARE IF YOU CHARGE ME WITH MUTINY FOR THIS BECAUSE I AM HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN.”

As he finished shouting, Kazuto dropped to the floor, curling into a ball with his hands fisted in his hair. “Go into the Navy, they said. You’ll only have to fight the Water Tribe, and they have wooden boats, they said. Never mind that they have water benders. Never mind that you’ll only see the same handful of people day in and day out and only set foot on dry ground once a month, if you’re lucky! Never mind that illness travels faster than the gossip. Never mind that one, infected, teenage, commander can put an entire ship out of commission for the foreseeable future in less than a day. Never mind. Neeeever mind.” He dissolved into hysterical giggles.

Zuko, who had never seen him so much as swear at someone who had cheated at cards, was understandably… concerned for the sanity of his crewman, and resolved to give him some space.

* * *

“Lieutenant Jee, report!”

Lovely. He was hallucinating now. There was no possible way that the prince was up and well enough to be barking at him. Not with how compromised everyone else on the ship was. Except for the newbie. He wondered how Kazuto had managed to avoid the contagion… Lieutenant Jee broke into a massive coughing fit. Oh dear. He hoped the prince wasn’t able to decipher any of his armor creaks over the coughing. The noises were insinuating some truly disturbing things about the parents of the individual he was speaking to. Which, if it was actually the prince he was seeing... Well. Treason wasn’t well received in the Fire Nation.

“LIEUTENANT!”

His hallucination was flawless in pitch and intonation for the prince’s ‘offended and all the louder for it’ shout.

“Oh for- did you hear ANYTHING I just said?”

“Mmm?” Another cough, this one creaking something deeply unflattering about the prince’s hair.

“I am going to ignore your insinuations as you appear to be too ill to have any understanding of your current situation. Which should have been obvious by the way you have tied yourself to the wheel.”

He was just a bit woozy, was all. He didn’t want to risk falling and send the wheel spinning the ship off course.

“Come on, you aren’t in any condition to be manning the wheel. You should go to your cabin and rest.”

His hallucination was very solid and very persistent in dragging him towards his cabin. Before he knew it, he was chivied into his bed with his boots off and the covers pulled up to his chin.

“I’ll go and get you some tea. Rest!”

He was even more sure that he was hallucinating, because he had seen the prince around ill crew mates before and they had never been mother-snakehenned into resting before, let alone Prince Zuko having anything to do with tea willingly. But if he was hallucinating that badly, he should stay in bed, because the level he was at was hazardous to the entire crew.

* * *

Zuko could not find a single tea leaf in the kitchen. He had checked every cabinet, every container, and yet could not find an ounce of tea. As a last resort, he checked the cold cabinet that they used to keep the few fresh provisions they had edible for a bit longer. As he swung open the door, a small brown lump jumped out at him. He caught it, leaving him and the frog blinking at each other.

* * *

“Why was Monaka in the cold box?!?”

Kazuto looked up blearily, emerging from his hysterical fugue state. Prince Zuko was standing in the doorway, holding the wood frog he had caught to try and cure the prince.

“My life is already so Agni-damned weird, this might as well happen,” he muttered, curling back into a ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who managed to post again before the end of the decade!
> 
> Holidays: Some undefined (large) number of wins
> 
> Me: 1
> 
> I made some executive decisions this chapter because I was tired finishing this up and didn't want to start super-obscure-detail dives. Also, I have two new fics that actually have words to documents so that was part of the reason why this took a while. Hope everybody's holidays went at least tolerably well. Mmm, I should do a new year's resolution. I resolve to finish at least one fanfic in 2020. Here's wishing everybody a good year!
> 
> P.S. You guys can thank MuffinLance for kicking my butt into gear on this. She liked a bunch of my reblogs on Tumblr yesterday, which served very well as motivation to start wrapping up this chapter.


	3. Please Remember To Use Only Doctor Recommended Forms Of Medication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zuko proves to be slightly prophetic.

Over the course of an hour and seven escape attempts from Monaka, Zuko had finally persuaded Kazuto to unroll from his ball of disassociation. Kazuto would, personally, much rather stay in that state until they ran into an iceberg, but the Prince proved to be exceedingly persistent and annoying.

“Are you going to answer my questions now?” Prince Zuko demanded.

“Yes, sir. What do you want to know?” Kazuto privately thought that the Prince would have better luck asking the frog any questions.

“Why. Was. Monaka. In. The. Cold. BOX!?!”

“Oh, right. Well, that species of frog is supposed to help cure the illness you had if you, ah. Lick it?” Kazuto cringed.

Zuko took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and slowly let it out. “Then why. Haven’t you tried. To get someone. To lick Monaka.”

“I did! But it didn’t work! So then I remembered that when I caught, er- Monaka in the first place, she was frozen? So I thought that maybe it only works if the frog is frozen for whatever reason,” Kazuto said.

“So you put her in the cold box. You realize that it doesn’t actually freeze anything. She jumped out at me when I was looking for tea,” Zuko said.

“Why were you looking in the cold box for tea?” Kazuto asked, confused.

“Because I couldn’t find any _anywhere!_ And I know Uncle has hiding spots everywhere, but I must have stumbled across _some_ of them! But there wasn’t so much as a loose leaf anywhere!” Zuko’s volume steadily climbed until he was only a hair away from shouting.

Kazuto frowned. “That’s weird. I specifically remember that the General had managed to get a couple of crates of tea while we were docked. We didn’t manage to stow them before we left port, but there should have been time since then.”

“Wait. You said earlier that I had Swamp Frog Fever?” Zuko asked, worry slowly dawning.

“Yes, it’s what everyone else has now,” Kazuto said, exasperated.

“Have you seen my Uncle? Recently?”

“He was in his cabin this morning.”

Zuko strode away. “But not after. And he could have a fever. And all the tea is missing.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Kazuto jogged after him. “But what do you think he’s doing?”

“With my luck,” Zuko muttered, “he’ll be trying to make the ocean into tea.”

* * *

When they reached the deck of the Wani, Uncle was standing next to the railing, tossing a box overboard.

“Uncle, stop!” Zuko shouted, breaking into a run. Not appearing to have heard, Uncle shucked his robe and jumped over the side of the ship.

“Get a rope!” Zuko shouted over his shoulder at Kazuto, throwing off his jacket and yanking off his boots before he also jumped over the side of the ship.

“What the hell.” Kazuto said blankly, trying to process what just happened.

Meanwhile, Zuko was swimming back towards Uncle, in water that was much colder than he had expected. He could see several boxes and a couple of crates bobbing sadly, growing further and further from the ship as it steamed away. He made it to his uncle quickly and grabbed hold of him. The water around his uncle was hot, almost to the point of boiling.

“Oh, hello nephew. Do you want a cup of tea? I’m making some,” he said vacantly. His arm bumped the lone tin of tea that bobbed near enough for him to touch. Zuko growled and grabbed the tin.

“Come on, Uncle. We have to get back to the ship. You can make tea there.” He started towing Uncle back towards the Wani. Uncle hummed mildly and let him pull him along behind.

However, the Wani was making quite good time, and no matter how hard Zuko swam, he gradually fell further and further behind the ship. There was still no rope trailing behind the Wani.

“PIKEMAN KAZUTO! IF YOU DO NOT GET A ROPE IN THE WATER NOW I WILL ENSURE YOU REGRET IT!”

Just then, a figure appeared, running toward the stern of the ship. Coils of rope draped over the figure’s arms and fell towards it’s feet, tripping the figure. As the figure fell, the coils launched over the rim of the railing. A thud echoed as the figure collided with the side of the ship, and a yelp floated over the rim shortly after.

Zuko swam with redoubled determination towards the approaching end of the rope. He grabbed it and tied a loop around Uncle’s waist. He started pulling himself along the rope, still holding on to the loop around his uncle, towing him along. Some time after, they finally reached the ship.

“Pikeman Kazuto! We’re here, can you haul up the slack on the rope?”

“… I’ll try,” came a weak reply. Zuko frowned, but the rope slowly started to recede up the side of the ship.

“Uncle, when the slack is all up, do you think you can climb the rope?” he asked.

“Why would I need to climb anywhere, Prince Zuko? I’m having a lovely bath,” Uncle answered.

“Ugh, fine! I’ll climb up and then pull you up after. But you have to hold on to the rope! Promise me, Uncle!”

“Alright, nephew. I promise,” he said, indulgently.

The slack in the rope finally ran out and Zuko started up the rope, glancing down at his uncle every so often. Uncle kept his promise, holding on tight to the rope and not so much as glancing at the makeshift harness tied around him. Finally, Zuko reached the railing of the ship and clambered over. The sodden rope wrapped around a rickety looking winch, and Kazuto was… sitting next to it, holding on to the handle. His right ankle was approximately the size of a small cabbage. Kazuto followed his gaze and winced.

“Hi. Yeah, um. My foot caught in the rope when I fell, and kind of was what kept the rope from falling off of the ship altogether?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this happened because I A: got sucked into TMA, B: wrote pretty much only the dialogue for the first chapter of a TMA fic in one go, C: got sick of filling in actions about halfway through, but still wanted to write. So I ended up writing probably about 1500 words in one day? Which I think even beats my best panicked last-minute essay writing sprints, if only because double checking the research for those took almost as long as the writing. Anyways, if you like TMA, I did post the first chapter of said fic because I have no self control. I told myself in the planning stages that I would write everything out and have it finished before I started posting.  
> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddd for some reason I'm rambling on about it to you guys instead of the notes of that fic. RIP. I don't know how quickly I'll get the next chapter done, this last month or so was super busy with my stuff, but now it's about to get busy with family stuff again. But I might continue the pattern of writing all the dialogue for my other fic and then writing this straight out, it seemed to work pretty well.  
> Alright, I'll quit rambling. Night everybody!


	4. Proper Rest And Fluids Are Essential To Health, Particularly When You Are Under The Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Zuko is left in charge of everything by...Fate? Destiny? A Frog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of Illness

Between Kazuto manning the winch and Zuko pulling the rope, they managed to get Uncle back onto the ship. There were a few terrifying moments when it looked as though he would let go of the rope that was helping keep his makeshift harness balanced, but Zuko yelled down at him and he held on. When Uncle was finally up to the rail, Zuko dragged Kazuto closer to the railing and ordered him to grab Uncle’s arms. Through a combination of pulling, shoving, and a lot of yelling, they eventually got him safely back onto the ship. Zuko hauled Uncle back to his cabin, grabbing his discarded robe as they went. He checked every porthole in the room and ordered him to stay in bed before he shut the door and locked it.

By the time Zuko was done, Kazuto had been sitting up on the deck for a very long time. He had progressed to idly counting the small chunks of ice that floated by his position when the prince finally came back on deck. The prince crossed over to him and knelt, frowning.

“Is your ankle that bad?” Zuko asked, eyeing it warily. The ankle had not swollen much more, but was now blooming in color to a vivid purple.

“Well, let’s try it,” Kazuto said with false brightness. He sat up, grabbed the railing, and pulled himself to his feet. He let the bad foot dangle for a moment, wincing at the weight of his foot alone. As he tried to put weight on it, air whistled through his clenched teeth like a particularly violent teapot.

“Yup, it’s that bad. It’s really that bad. Ohhhhhhh, it’s bad _I regret being born sweet Agni_!”

Zuko huffed and ducked under the other boy’s arm. “Come on, I think I remember where the rest of the poultice they used when I broke my arm is,” he grumbled. They made their hobbling way down to his cabin, stopping every now and then for Zuko to adjust his grip. Once they made it to Zuko’s cabin, he sat Kazuto down on his cot and rummaged in his trunk for the jar of poultice and some bandages.

“Thank you, Prince Zuko,” Kazuto said, reaching for the medicine, and was surprised when Zuko sat and began applying the poultice himself. “Um, your Highness-”

“You were injured aiding me, and there is no one with medical expertise available. The least I can do is help you wrap this and not leave you to do it yourself,” he said brusquely.

Kazuto wisely decided not to comment on this.

* * *

After Zuko had settled Kazuto in his own bunk, he began the process of getting everyone else to theirs. This was met with… varying success. Thankfully, most of the crew were not hallucinating. On the other hand, they were all running fevers and were suffering from various other symptoms, which had been compounded by laying for several hours on the cold steel of the floor. Almost all of the crew responded to shouting orders with groans and coughs, but eventually could be convinced to get up and stumble in the direction of their bunks. This method worked until he reached engineering.

“Engineer Hanako! You are relieved of your post, proceed to your bunk immediately!” Zuko shouted, voice verging on hoarse. For all that his usual method of leadership consisted of barking orders, he had never had to so consistently shout for such a long period of time.

Hanako was having none of it. “SHOVE OFF, I CAN FU-” she broke off with a fit of dry, raspy coughs. “I’M-” she coughed so hard it sounded like she was about to throw up. “I’m… fine,” she finished in a barely-there whisper.

Zuko was unimpressed. “Get to your bunk and I’ll bring you hot water with lemon.”

“No tea?”

“No tea.”

“But I want tea.”

“Well Uncle tried to turn the ocean into tea, so that wiped out our tea stores.”

Hanako stared foggily. “What?”

“You’re all running fevers, as far as I can tell, but apparently some of you are also hallucinating. Uncle is one of them,” he huffed, trying to chivy Hanako along.

“I think I’m hallucinating too.”

“WHAT-”

“Oh, never mind. Shouting.”

* * *

Eventually, Zuko managed to get his entire crew into their beds and proceeded to pour water down their throats. He couldn’t remember what else you were supposed to do for a fever besides rest and water. He couldn’t remember what the difference was between a normal fever and a dangerous fever, although he did remember that firebenders naturally ran hotter than non-benders. None of his crew seemed to be dangerously hot, but were all thoroughly miserable. They didn’t have much coralflower root, but there was enough to make a small cup of very weak tea for everyone and have some left over. He made a slightly stronger cup and took it to Kazuto.

“You found tea?” the other teen asked, taking the cup. He peered into it and immediately made a face.

“Coralflower root. It should help with the pain.”

“It tastes so bad though,” Kazuto whined, reluctantly sipping the murky liquid.

“I can give it to someone else,” Zuko threatened, reaching for the cup.

“No, it’s my gross root broth!”

“Then quit complaining.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Kazuto sipping at his cup while Zuko scowled at him.

“How’s the rest of the crew?” Kazuto asked eventually.

“Not happy. They’ve all got fevers, but I don’t think any of them are dangerous ones. Some have bad coughs or are really congested. It looks like only Uncle was truly hallucinating. I don’t know what else to do for them except to get them to rest and drink lots of fluids.”

“I think that’s mostly it, unless their temperatures get really high. Or at least, that’s as much as we can do with what’s on hand.” They looked at Monaka, who Zuko had put in a blanket-lined box and left with Kazuto. “What are you going to feed her?” Kazuto asked.

“We still have some dried grasshoppers. There aren’t many bugs on the ship, so hopefully she’ll be fine with those.” Zuko answered, having been thinking about this while he tended to his crew.

“Well, once we’re far enough north we can pull up some ice, both to help her hibernate and to freeze her for the rest of the crew to lick.”

“Wait, we’re going north?” Zuko asked, startled.

“Yeah, we were trying to get away from port quickly and that’s the course that was set. It’s getting colder, didn’t you realize? We were starting to get ice in the water when you moved me to put the poultice on...” Kazuto trailed off. He looked at Zuko, whose expression of dawning dread mirrored his own. Zuko bolted towards the deck as Kazuto cursed and grabbed for the most cane-like thing he could reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...hey y'all. It's been a while. 
> 
> Honestly, I've got a boatload of reasons/excuses/explanations, but even trying to think of them to lay them out in a coherent fashion makes me Tired and Depressed. The main thing I will say is that it felt really not OK to be writing about sickness for like, the first three or four months of lockdowns and quarantines. Plus, guess who was an essential worker! Then a lot of personal stuff kept compounding, so my 2020 was pretty much screwed without COVID, but it certainly didn't help. 
> 
> But now I have a new job, a lot more freedom, and I'm slowly dragging myself out of the depressive funk I've been in. And honestly, you all have been a huge part of that. It's freaking amazing to log on to my Gmail and find a kudos email, and y'all have made that happen pretty much every day. I hadn't been following my hits and kudos counts, but somewhere along the road CNSFTAHS made over 500 kudos?!? I can't thank you all enough. 
> 
> I would like to ask you all for some more help. I've made a Google Forms survey for some of the fic ideas I've had in the last year. It's pretty eclectic, but my brain makes weird connections. Hopefully this link works:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd_zjbJxoQnZO5tQ56vW3rePCoXs3CUxdCC56hls9GczKcdqw/viewform?usp=sf_link
> 
> If not, I'll try to also post it to my tumblr, and potentially in my AO3 profile. There's no close date, I just want to kind of get a feel for what everyone might be interested in. There's also a section for continuations of my current fics and series. If this is something you all are interested in, it might become a Thing for me. 
> 
> I think that's all I've got for now. Again, thank you all so much. I hope this makes up for the wait!

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how long this is going to end up, I have a rough outline up until about the siege of the Northern Water Tribe. I also have no idea how long it'll be before I update, because guess who got kind of voluntold she'd be doing desserts for Thanksgiving! Also the aforementioned three other fics I've been working on, but those are slow going and take a lot more research so. Who knows. If y'all are interested in super random stuff and ridiculously spotty updates on writing progress, come take a look at my Tumblr, which is also whoknowsyourfuture. If you want me to update faster, nice comments help. Sending me asks on Tumblr when I'm scrolling through my feed instead of writing may also help, but no trials have been performed on that method. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
